LASSITER

I long debated whether to name this page "Lassiter", "Lasiter", or "Laster", and this is all due to George. Born on the 3rd of July, 1827, most records list George as either "Lasiter" or "Laster", but we know that he was likely born a Lassiter, as records of his brothers use this spelling, and it is a far more common spelling overall. George, however, seemed to have first dropped an s, and then dropped the i. In any case, George was born in North Carolina to unknown parents. On the 22nd of March, 1855, he wed Malona Riddle, and the two had 8 children...all with the surname Laster. Sometime between 1855 and 1860, George and Malona moved to Missouri, and George supported the family as a farmer. In 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate army. Whether he actively served or not is unknown, but it seems likely, given the year and his location at the time. By the 1880 census, he is listed as "maimed, crippled, or bedridden", and he passed away 5 years later. 

George and Malona's children:

Jesse Laster, 1856 - 

Joseph Laster, 1860 - 

Mary Emeline Laster, 1866 - 

Sarah Laster, 1868 - 1892

Cora Laster, 1870 - 

George Alexander Laster, 1872 - 1950

Rebecca Jane Laster, 1876 - 1954

Walter Gray Laster, 1879 - 1935

Rebecca was born on the 20th of January, 1876, in Missouri. On the 13th of December, 1893, she married Robert King, and the two moved to Arkansas and had 3 children together before Robert passed away just 6 years into their marriage and a month before their youngest child was born. A widow at just 23, Rebecca managed to live as a single mother of three young children for five years, until she married Sylvester Trowbridge on the 11th of January, 1905. Rebecca and Sylvester had four children together, whom they raised in Arkansas. She became a widow for the second time in 1934, at the age of 58. Not long before she passed away, she moved to Lawton, Oklahoma, likely to be closer to one of her children, my great-grandmother Goldene. She passed away on the 28th of October, 1954.